


The More Things Change

by katling



Series: Tony Stark Bingo [39]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fury is frustrated, Gen, He was also Iron Man briefly, Not Steve Friendly, Roger has only just been found, Then Rhodey became Iron Man, Tony hasn't met Steve, Tony is Captain America, Tony is not impressed, because he can't control Tony, but he's biased against him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: Steve Rogers might have been Howard Stark's first great science experiment, but Tony was his second. That changes many things, including what happens after Afghanistan. And when Rogers is found after seventy years in the ice, life just got a whole lot more complicated.
Series: Tony Stark Bingo [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270763
Comments: 36
Kudos: 547
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	The More Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> Basic premise of this universe is that after some bad experiences in the Arctic, Howard gave up on finding Steve and instead concentrated on the serum. He managed to create a successful version of the serum, which was given to Tony when he was born sickly and weak and unlikely to survive. He did survive but the serum didn't do much more than that. The serum only really kicked in during the trauma of being operated on without anaesthetic in Afghanistan. Tony did create Iron Man to escape and used it for a while afterwards but when the bad memories accumulated, he decided to hand Iron Man over to Rhodey and instead dug up the old shield and Captain America name and decided to go with that.
> 
> Also, another key point is that while the serum couldn't stop the palladium poisoning from occuring, it did stave off the worst of the effects for longer and Tony didn't go off the rails like he did in canon. So, when Natasha and SHIELD came sniffing around, Tony read them like a books and ran rings around them until he extracted what he wanted out of them. He's not well-liked by SHIELD and he doesn't give a damn about that.

Tony strode down the corridors of the SHIELD base, his heels thudding with every step he took. His expression was professionally blank but inside was whirling a torrent of disgust and sour amusement. The only saving grace of this whole trip had been that it was the quickest he’d ever been in and out of Fury’s office.

Happy was waiting for him when he exited the building and Tony saw the way his friend’s eyebrows quirked. Happy was one of the few to be able to read him like a book – Rhodey and Pepper being the other two – and he was tossing the keys to Tony and moving to the passenger side before he could say anything. Tony smiled slightly as he slid into the driver’s seat and started the car but it wasn’t until they were well clear that he spoke.

“Hap?”

“Nobody got close to the car, boss,” Happy replied.

Tony nodded and concentrated on the traffic for a moment.

“What did they want?” Happy finally asked.

Tony was silent for a moment. “They found Rogers.”

Happy blinked. “What? They wanted you to pay for his funeral or something?”

That prompted a laugh from Tony. “He’s alive.”

“What?” Happy squawked. “How?”

“The serum,” was all Tony said and Happy grimaced.

Howard had been obsessed with the serum. He’d been obsessed with finding Rogers at first but a few nasty incidents in the Arctic had finally convinced him to put Rogers to rest. He’d then turned his attention to the only thing he’d had left of Rogers – the serum. He’d perfected it shortly before Tony had been born, which had been fortuitous because Tony had been born sickly and weak and not expected to survive. Howard had used the serum on him but it had seemed to have little effect except for keeping him alive. Howard had been disappointed by that, something he’d let Tony know about until the day he’d crashed the car and killed himself and Tony’s Mom.

Tony had never really thought about the serum after that, not until a bomb he’d designed exploded in front of him and sent shrapnel lancing into his chest. He’d survived the operation to install the first arc reactor and he’d known the moment he saw the question in Yinsen’s eyes that he shouldn’t have survived it. That Yinsen had operated because he’d been told to, not because he’d thought there was a chance in hell that Tony would survive.

But he had and what’s more, he’d thrived, even in that hellhole. Yinsen had helped him hide the fact that he was in rude good health, never asking a single question. Tony always wished that he’d been able to save the gentle doctor and answer all of his question but apparently even his curiosity hadn’t been enough to divert Yinsen from his unspoken plan of re-joining his wife and children.

When he’d returned home, he’d found that the serum had seemingly incorporated the arc reactor into his “normal” state and it had held off the effects of the palladium poisoning long enough for him to wrangle SHIELD into telling him what they knew despite their attempts to control and manipulate him. With the new Starkium based core, the arc reactor was stable and Tony had developed his subsequent suits and weapons around it and the power it provided.

In the aftermath of that episode, he and Rhodey had talked and Tony had handed Iron Man off to the Colonel, which had had the added benefit of quieting the whining of the military, even if the handover had been hedged with an iron-clad contract that tied the military’s hands in more ways than they were really happy about. But they’d been silenced again when Tony had taken up a different mantle – Captain America. 

He'd thought about continuing on as Iron Man, but the suit had so many bad memories attached to it – Afghanistan, his wayward weapons, Stane’s betrayal, the military and SHIELD nasty, grabby hands – that he’d wanted a fresh start but he still had weapons to destroy. That had needed a new type of hero and with the now fully active serum, digging up and claiming his Dad’s old science experiment seemed like a good idea. Especially since he was his Dad’s last great science experiment. He just wished the activation of the serum had given him the same height growth Rogers had gotten. Maybe because there was so much time between getting the serum and it being activated? It didn’t really matter since he’d gotten the important parts of it – the increase in agility and dexterity and the healing factor.

So, he’d dug the shield out of his father’s effects and made himself a suit that was still recognisably Captain America but less… garish. He and Rhodey had then stepped up as a team, working with the military on approved missions. It had gone extremely well and most of the Generals had stopped complaining that Iron Man and Captain America weren’t completely theirs to control.

“So, what did they want?” Happy asked, breaking Tony out of his thoughts.

“For me to hand over the shield and the title,” Tony said, disgust curling his lip. “To give back Captain America to its _rightful owner_ and go back to being Iron Man.”

Happy snorted. “That wouldn’t have gone well for them. Rogers never owned Captain America.”

Tony managed a sour chuckle. “True. Fury knows that too. He was just making another attempt to manipulate and control me, this time through Dad’s memory.”

“What did you tell him?”

“To go fuck himself,” Tony replied. “More or less in those words too. I am Captain America and Rhodey is Iron Man and that’s that.” He snorted. “Besides, Rogers has been lost in the ice for seventy years. He’s going to need some serious rehabilitation to catch up with everything he’s missed, as well as some serious therapy for PTSD. He’s not ready for anything other than that.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Not to mention, Rogers is in no way qualified for the job. Hell, even I wasn’t qualified until Rhodey insisted I do some officer training. Rogers never even completed boot camp, let alone anything higher.”

“Do think Fury’s going to let it rest at that?” Happy asked, looking dubious.

Tony snorted again. “Not a chance in hell. He’s going to manipulate Rogers and send _him_ after me, full of righteous fury and indignation, demanding what he thinks is his.”

“What are you going to do?”

Tony contemplated that for a moment. There were a lot of things he _could_ do and a lot of things he _might_ have done before Rhodey had wrangled his stubborn ass into a special accelerated one-man-only session of the Marine Corps’ officer training. (Rhodey had chosen the Marines over the other branches of the military because Tony, as Captain America, was effectively going to be advanced infantry and if that was the case, better he be trained by the best America had to offer.) The men and women who had trained him had not put up with his bullshit for one single minute and even Tony had to admit he’d come out all the better for it. He could still absolutely be Tony Fucking Stark™ when he needed to be but now, more than ever, it was just a mask, with very little of it being part of the real man. Which was why SHIELD continually failed to reel him in. They were still basing their tactics on Tony Fucking Stark™. 

“I’m going to let him come,” he said as he manoeuvred the car through the traffic. “Steve Rogers may have been Captain America in the past, but the title and the shield are mine now. Rogers can’t have them. Besides, what made him special is _also_ mine now. If he wants to be a super soldier as well, we can come to an arrangement. I’m happy to outfit him and come up with a new name for him. But I am Captain America.”

Happy nodded but didn’t look surprised. “There’ll be trouble.”

Tony chuckled. “When isn’t there with me, Hap? We’ll just deal with it as it comes, as we always do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tony’s Captain America suit isn’t like an Iron Man suit. It's kind of a mix between a mechanical suit and Cap's more traditional uniform. However, it’s much more streamlined and essentially looks like the normal Cap suit (without the garish red, white and blue – it _is_ red, white and blue but the colours are surprisingly subtle for Tony – the bulk of it is dark blue with red and white highlights.) and it’s built for speed, agility and dexterity but it also has mechanical elements to it. It’s exactly the kind of Cap suit you’d expect Tony to make for himself.


End file.
